Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Removing a site from Google index with no index met tags
-
Hi there!
I wanted to remove a duplicated site from the google index. I've read that you can do this by removing the URL from Google Search console and, although I can't find it in Google Search console, Google keeps on showing the site on SERPs. So I wanted to add a "no index" meta tag to the code of the site however I've only found out how to do this for individual pages, can you do the same for a entire site? How can I do it?
Thank you for your help in advance!
L
-
This is the best response. Others have cited using robots.txt, that's a bad idea IMO. Robots.txt will stop Google from crawling pages, Meta no-index directs Google not to index a page. If Google can't crawl a page (due to robots.txt) then they won't be able to 'find' the no-index directive. As Jordan says, no-index should come first. When all pages are de-indexed, then OP can begin to think about robots.txt as suggested by Rajesh. OP could also combine Meta no-index with status code 410 (gone) to make it a stronger signal - though this is inadvisable with OP's situation (where the site will remain live for users, but be gone from Google). In the end, Jordan's reply is the best one which has been left here
A final note might be that, instead of editing the HTML of all OPs pages, OP could fire no-index though x-robots via the HTTP header (which is often more scaleable)
-
You need to use robots.txt for the same. Just write a rule and remove your site from Google.
Rule is -
# rulesUser-agent: *
Disallow: /After this, Remove this meta tag -
name="robots" content="INDEX, FOLLOW"/> OR you can update this meta tag with this -
name="robots" content="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW"/> -
Depending on your interest and are you really willing to remove? Setting issues are there. I am also looking for AmazeInvent
-
Depending on what CMS you're using you should be able to add a meta no-index tag sitewide fairly easily. I know with WordPress there's an option in the backend under "Setting", "Reading" Discourage search engines from indexing this site that should allow you to apply a meta no index tag site wide.
If you're not on WordPress you should be able to edit your code and apply a no index sitewide. You might need a tool like FileZilla so you can set up some sort of FTP access and edit your Header file directly.
Cheers

Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google tries to index non existing language URLs. Why?
Hi, I am working for a SAAS client. He uses two different language versions by using two different subdomains.
Technical SEO | | TheHecksler
de.domain.com/company for german and en.domain.com for english. Many thousands URLs has been indexed correctly. But Google Search Console tries to index URLs which were never existing before and are still not existing. de.domain.com**/en/company
en.domain.com/de/**company ... and an thousand more using the /en/ or /de/ in between. We never use this variant and calling these URLs will throw up a 404 Page correctly (but with wrong respond code - we`re fixing that 😉 ). But Google tries to index these kind of URLs again and again. And, I couldnt find any source of these URLs. No Website is using this as an out going link, etc.
We do see in our logfiles, that a Screaming Frog Installation and moz.com w opensiteexplorer were trying to access this earlier. My Question: How does Google comes up with that? From where did they get these URLs, that (to our knowledge) never existed? Any ideas? Thanks 🙂0 -
Removed Subdomain Sites Still in Google Index
Hey guys, I've got kind of a strange situation going on and I can't seem to find it addressed anywhere. I have a site that at one point had several development sites set up at subdomains. Those sites have since launched on their own domains, but the subdomain sites are still showing up in the Google index. However, if you look at the cached version of pages on these non-existent subdomains, it lists the NEW url, not the dev one in the little blurb that says "This is Google's cached version of www.correcturl.com." Clearly Google recognizes that the content resides at the new location, so how come the old pages are still in the index? Attempting to visit one of them gives a "Server Not Found" error, so they are definitely gone. This is happening to a couple of sites, one that was launched over a year ago so it doesn't appear to be a "wait and see" solution. Any suggestions would be a huge help. Thanks!!
Technical SEO | | SarahLK0 -
Using the Google Remove URL Tool to remove https pages
I have found a way to get a list of 'some' of my 180,000+ garbage URLs now, and I'm going through the tedious task of using the URL removal tool to put them in one at a time. Between that and my robots.txt file and the URL Parameters, I'm hoping to see some change each week. I have noticed when I put URL's starting with https:// in to the removal tool, it adds the http:// main URL at the front. For example, I add to the removal tool:- https://www.mydomain.com/blah.html?search_garbage_url_addition On the confirmation page, the URL actually shows as:- http://www.mydomain.com/https://www.mydomain.com/blah.html?search_garbage_url_addition I don't want to accidentally remove my main URL or cause problems. Is this the right way this should look? AND PART 2 OF MY QUESTION If you see the search description in Google for a page you want removed that says the following in the SERP results, should I still go to the trouble of putting in the removal request? www.domain.com/url.html?xsearch_... A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more.
Technical SEO | | sparrowdog1 -
Removing images from site and Image Sitemap SEO advice
Hello again, I have received an update request where they want me to remove images from this site (as of now its a bunch of thumbnails) current page design: http://1stimpressions.com/portfolio/car-wraps/ and turn it into a new design which utilized a slider (such as this): http://1stimpressions.com/portfolio/ They don't want the thumbnails on the page anymore. My question is since my site has a image sitemap that has been indexed will removing all the images hurt my SEO greatly? What would the recommended steps to take to reduce any SEO damage be, if so? Thank you again for your help, always great and very helpful feedback! 🙂 cheers!
Technical SEO | | allstatetransmission0 -
Unnecessary pages getting indexed in Google for my blog
I have a blog dapazze.com and I am suffering from a problem for a long time. I found out that Google have indexed hundreds of replytocom links and images attachment pages for my blog. I had to remove these pages manually using the URL removal tool. I had used "Disallow: ?replytocom" in my robots.txt, but Google disobeyed it. After that, I removed the parameter from my blog completely using the SEO by Yoast plugin. But now I see that Google has again started indexing these links even after they are not present in my blog (I use #comment). Google have also indexed many of my admin and plugin pages, whereas they are disallowed in my robots.txt file. Have a look at my robots.txt file here: http://dapazze.com/robots.txt Please help me out to solve this problem permanently?
Technical SEO | | rahulchowdhury0 -
Why has Google removed meta descriptions from SERPS?
One of my clients' sites has just been redesigned with lots of new URLs added. So the 301 redirections have been put in place and most of the new URLs have now been indexed. BUT Google is still showing all the old URLs in the SERPS and even worse it only displays the title tag. The meta description is not shown, no rich snippet, no text, nothing below the title. This is proving disastrous as visitors are not clicking on a result with no description. I have to assume its got something to do with the redirection, but why is it not showing the descriptions? I've checked the old URLs and he meta description is definitely still in the code, but Google is choosing not to show it. I've never seen this before so I'm struggling for an answer. I'd like to know why or how this is happening, and if it can be resolved. I realise that this may be resolved when Google stops showing all the old URLs but there's no telling how long that will take (can it be speeded up?)
Technical SEO | | Websensejim0 -
Content loc and player log tags for XML video site maps
I need a little help understanding how to create two of the required tags for a XML video site map for Google. 1. video:content_loc2.<video:player_loc< p=""></video:player_loc<></video:content_loc> Google explains their Video XML Site map requirements here:
Technical SEO | | dsexton10
www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=80472
Using the example on this Google Web Master Help page (where they explain all six of the required tags) , here are examples of the two tags I need help with: video:content_locwww.example.com/video123.flv</video:content_loc> <video:player_loc allow_embed="yes" autoplay="ap=1">www.example.com/videoplayer.swf?video=12...video:player_loc></video:player_loc> The video I am trying to optimize is located on a page on my site:
www.mountainbikingmaine.com/races/bradbury_hawk.html
This page has an embedded Vimeo video. So I don't have the video file on my domain. It is on Vimeo. Here is source code from my page that I think provides the information I need to create the two tags that Google requires. <iframe src="<a rel=" nofollow"="" href="http://player.vimeo.com/video/24580638?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0"" target="_blank">player.vimeo.com/video/24580638?title=0&...amp;portrait=0"</a> width="400" height="533" frameborder="0"></iframe> [vimeo.com/24580638">Bradbury](<a rel=) Mountain Maine Hawk Migration Count from [vimeo.com/user3219915">dan](<a rel=) sexton Using this source from my site, can you suggest what to put in the two tags? Thanks! Dan0 -
Does Google index XML files?
Does Google or other search engines include XML files in their index? More specifically, I am wondering how Google knows the difference between an xml filetype and an RSS feed.
Technical SEO | | nicole.healthline0